Month: April 2019

Hollies – King Midas In Reverse

Graham Nash wanted to change the direction of the Hollies and write songs that were more in vogue around this time instead of the simple pop songs they were writing. The song only made it to #18 in the UK charts and it was considered a failure compared to their earlier releases although it was praised by the critics. I think it is inventive and fits in really well with the times.

Nash wrote it after he got back from America on a tour. This was not the rest of the band’s favorite song by any means and they wrote a simple…very simple pop song to follow this song called Jennifer Eccles that of course went to #7 in the UK charts which a disheartened Nash hated and he left for greener pastures with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. I can’t blame him for not liking Jennifer Eccles…it was a weak song.

The song only made it to #51 in the Billboard 100 in 1967. Maybe the change of direction didn’t sit too well with the public. It’s one of my favorites by the Hollies.

Graham said:  “My world was turning to sh*t at that point. I was on top of the world, we had 16 or 17 top ten hits, but I was feeling shitty. We made a great record of that song but it only got into the top 30, and the Hollies were always expecting their songs to go into the top 10. So they started to not trust me and not record my songs, ‘’Marrakesh Express’’ being one of them. So I wasn’t feeling that great about my life. It was all turning to sh*t, it wasn’t turning to gold, it was turning to rust.”

Personally, I like the song better than Marrakesh Express.

King Midas In Reverse

If you could only see me.
And know exactly were I am.
You wouldn’t want to be me,
Oh I can assure you of that.

I’m not the guy to run with,
Cause I’ll pull you off the line.
I’ll break you and destroy you
Give time.

He’s King Midas with a curse.
He’s king Midas in Reverse.
He’s King Midas with a curse.
He’s King Midas in Reverse.

It’s plain to see it’s hopeless,
Goin’ on the way we are.
So even though I loose you,
You’ll be better off by far.

He’s not the man to hold your trust, 
Everything he touches turns to dust in his hands.
Nothing he can do is right, he’d even like to sleep at night, but he can’t.

All he touches turns to dust
All he touches turns to dust
All he touches turns to dust
All he touches turns to dust

I wish someone would find me,
And help me gain control.
Before I loose my reason,
And my soul
He’s King Midas with a curse.
He’s King Midas in reverse.
He’s King Midas with a curse.
He’s king Midas in Reverse.
He’s King Midas with a curse
(all he touches turns to dust)
He’s Kind Midas in Reverse.
(all he touches turns to dust)
He’s King Midas with a curse,
(all he touches turns to dust)
He’s King Midas in Reverse

 

 

 

Led Zeppelin – Trampled Under Foot

A bit different of a song for Led Zeppelin. This was on their great Physical Graffiti album…which was to me their last great album. This song peaked at #38 in the Billboard 100 in 1975. Led Zeppelin really was not a singles band but they did have 10 songs in the top 100 and 1 top ten song.

Led Zeppelin wasn’t a funk band but on this track they had something going. John Paul Jones played clavinet on this song that is just outstanding. Jones was the utility player for the band and probably the most underrated member.

The guitar had a great sound…Jimmy Page: It’s sort of backward echo and wah-wah. I don’t know how responsible I was for new sounds because there were so many good things happening around that point, around the release of the first Zeppelin album, like Hendrix and Clapton.

From Songfacts

The lyrics were based on Robert Johnson’s 1936 “Terraplane Blues.” A Terraplane is a classic car, and the song uses car parts as metaphors for sex: “pump your gas,” “rev all night,” etc.

This evolved out of a jam session. It became a concert favorite and a popular song on rock radio. When Led Zeppelin played it live, they would often jam on it, extending it with guitar and keyboard solos. 

This is one of Robert Plant’s favorite Zeppelin songs. He sang it on his 1988 Now and Zen tour.

Led Zeppelin performed this at Carmen Plant’s 21st birthday party in 1989 with Jason Bonham on drums. Carmen is Robert’s daughter.

The “Talkin ’bout love” part was most likely nicked from the song “Love” by Curtis Knight and Jimi Hendrix. 

Led Zeppelin did not release any singles in the UK until 1997 when “Whole Lotta Love” was released 18 years after it was written. In 1975, Zeppelin’s Swan Song label sent 5000 pressings of “Trampled Underfoot” to UK record stores as incentive to stock the Physical Graffiti album. These were labeled “Special Limited Edition” and became collectors’ items.

At Earls Court in 1975, Robert Plant introduced the song like this: “If you like the motor cars and the parts of the human body, then sometimes… you can get trrrrrampled under foot!” 

“Trampled Underfoot” was probably named after the bassline being a repetitive boom, played with a Moog pedal.

Trampled Under Foot

Greasy slicked-down body, Groovy leather trim
I like the way you hug the road, Mama it ain’t no sin
Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout
Ooh, trouble-free transmission, helps your oil’s flow
Mama, let me pump your gas, mama, let me do it all
Talkin’ ’bout love, huh, Talkin’ ’bout love, ooh, Talkin’ ’bout
Take that heavy metal underneath your hood
Baby, I could work all night, leave a big pile of tubes
Talkin’ ’bout lo-ove, Talkin’ ’bout lo-ove, Talkin’ ’bout
Automobile club-covered, really built in style
Special is tradition, mama, let me feast my eyes
Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout
Factory air-conditioned, wind begins to rise
Guaranteed to run for hours, mama, and brand-new tires
Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout
Groovin’ on the freeway, blazes on the road
From now on my gasoline is even gonna conk your hair
Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout
I can’t stop talkin’ about, I can’t stop talkin’ about
Ooh, yeah-yeah, yes, ah, drive on
Ooh, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yes, I’m comin’ through
Come to me for service every hundred miles
Baby, let me check your valves, fix your overdrive
Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout
Ooh, yes, fully automatic, comes in any size
Makes me wonder what I did, before I got synchronized
Talkin’ ’bout lo-ove, Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout
Ooh, feather-light suspension, coils just couldn’t hold
I’m so glad I took a look inside your showroom doors
Talkin’ ’bout love, Talkin’ ’bout lo-oo-oh-ove, Talkin’ ’bout
Oh yeah, oh yeah, Oh, I can’t stop talkin’ about love
I can’t stop talkin’ about love
Ooh, let me go in down, go in down, go in down, go in down, go in down, yes, I
can’t stop talkin’ about
I can’t stop talkin’ about lo-oh’, baby
I can’t stop talkin’ about love, or my baby
I can’t stop talkin’ about love, my baby, uh, my baby, 
my baby, yeah, Unnh, push, push, push it, push, push
Ounheahhonhouh

Careless Love…The Unmaking of Elvis Book

Hanspostcard recommended Last Train to Memphis and this sequel Careless Love The Unmaking of Elvis Presley… and both are excellent recommendations for anyone who wants to learn about Elvis. This one begins where the other left off with Elvis going to Germany in the Army and ends…at the end.

Guralnick covers everything here. Elvis’s gradual distaste of the movies he was making, the great comeback special, Las Vegas, the Richard Milhous Nixon meeting, two concert documentaries, recording good music again, Aloha from Hawaii, the freefall, and then death. In between these events, we see the girls, his buddies the Memphis Mafia, the drugs, the paranoia, his search for something more, and his huge generosity.

I always wondered why he didn’t try to blend in a little more and not be so noticeable…but he loved so much being Elvis Presley. Once he was in a restaurant and no one was noticing him…he walked by a couple of women near the bathroom and gave them a smile just so they knew. He also loved making people happy by being over-generous. If you were in the right place at the right time you could end up with a car or a diamond ring.

He was raised well by his parents and seemed like a good person. He could show flashes of anger at people around, have jealousy, even a Christ complex at times, unpredictable and living in denial about his drug problem. In other words…he was human and that is what I like about the book. It’s not elevating him too high nor turning him into a parody of himself.

The book also goes into his manager “Colonel” Tom Parker who at one point was getting 50 percent of what Elvis was earning. He could have done much better than Parker but Elvis was loyal and in some ways insecure. If you want to know about Elvis…get Last Train to Memphis and this one…Careless Love.

Here is a fan-made “trailer” of the book.

 

 

 

 

 

The first Cell Phone Call

It was 46 years ago today that the first cell phone call was made…so when you see people walking down the street like zombies with their eyes on their phone…you know the beginning.

On April 3, 1973, the first cell phone call was made by Motorola engineer Martin Cooper from Sixth Avenue in New York while walking between 53rd and 54th streets.

Martin used a 2 1/2-pound prototype to his ear and called a rival, Joel Engel of Bell Laboratories at AT&T, to declare that his Motorola team had devised a functional portable phone. “There was silence at the other end of the line,” Cooper recalled to Bloomberg in 2015. “To this day, Joel doesn’t remember that call, and I’m not sure I blame him.”

Motorola executive demonstrates the first cell phone

Martin Cooper…wonder if he is about to text after the call?

 

https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/first-cell-phone-call.html

 

Boz Scaggs – Lowdown

This was his biggest charting hit. It peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100 in 1976. It’s groove song I’ve always liked…very smooth and catchy.

Scaggs wrote this song with the keyboard player David Paich, who would later form the band Toto and write many of their hits. “Lowdown” was the first song that Scaggs and Paich wrote together…it was Silk Degrees producer Joe Wissert who put them together.

Boz Scaggs said: “We took off for a weekend to this getaway outside of LA where there was a piano and stayed up all night banging around ideas. We hit on ‘Lowdown,’ and then we brought it back to the band and recorded it. We were just thrilled with that one. That was the first song that we attempted, and it had a magic to it.”

 

From Songfacts

This was the second single released from Silk Degrees. The first was “It’s Over,” which charted at a modest #38 in May 1976. Scaggs had little name recognition at the time, and sales were stagnant for the album until an R&B radio station in Cleveland started playing “Lowdown.” Other stations followed suit, and it quickly became clear that the song had crossover appeal and hit potential. Scaggs’ label, CBS, released it as a single and it climbed to #3 on the Hot 100 in October, spurring sales of the album along the way.

The song is about a girl who doesn’t appreciate what her man gives her. The “dirty lowdown” is the honest truth – what Scaggs is encouraging this poor sap to face.

The word “Lowdown” was popular slang meaning a summary of what’s going on for real. The first Hot 100 entry with the term in the title came in 1969 with the instrumental “Lowdown Popcorn” by James Brown (#41, 1969). Next came Chicago’s song “Lowdown” (#35, 1971).

Along with keyboard player David Paich, two other future Toto members also played on this track: drummer Jeff Porcaro and bass player David Hungate. The Silk Degrees marked the first time that Scaggs used these studio pros, and it was also his first album produced by Joe Wissert, who was a staff producer at Columbia Records who had previously worked with Earth, Wind & Fire.

The crew for the album found just the right sound, a Disco-blend that could play in dance clubs and pool halls. Scaggs credits Wissert for giving him and the other musicians plenty of freedom in the studio, resulting in one of the most successful albums of the ’70s – Silk Degrees went on to sell over five million copies.

This won the Grammy for Best R&B Song of 1976, making Scaggs the first white artist to win the award (Leo Sayer was the second, taking the trophy the next year for “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.”)

The producers of Saturday Night Fever asked to use this in their movie, but Scaggs’ manager turned them down and instead used it in the movie Looking For Mr. Goodbar. Not a good move – Saturday Night Fever became one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time.

Lowdown

Baby’s into running around
Hanging with the crowd
Putting your business in the street 
Talking out loud
Saying you bought her this and that
And how much you done spent
I swear she must believe it’s all heaven sent

Hey boy you better bring the chick around
To the sad, sad truth the dirty lowdown

(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who) 
Taught her how to talk like that
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who) 
Gave her that big idea

Nothin’ you can’t handle
Nothin’ you ain’t got
Put your money on the table 
And drive it off the lot
Turn on that old love light 
And turn a “maybe” to a “yes”
Same old schoolboy game got you into this mess

Hey son, better get back on to town
Face the sad old truth, the dirty lowdown

(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who) 
Put those ideas in your head
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)

Yeah

Come on back down, little son
Dig the low, low, low, low, lowdown!

You ain’t got to be so bad, got to be so cold
This dog eat dog existence sure is getting old
Got to have a Jones for this
Jones for that
This runnin’ with the Joneses, boy, just ain’t where it’s at, no, no

You gonna come back around
To the sad, sad truth, the dirty lowdown

(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
Got you thinking like that, boy
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who) 

I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who
Said I wonder, wonder, wonder, I wonder who
Oh, look out for that lowdown (ohh, I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who)
That dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty lowdown

Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who
Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who

Got you thinkin’ like that
Got you thinkin’ just like that
(Ooh I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who) 
Lookin’ that girl in the face is so sad
I’m ashamed of you

I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder who

Wallflowers – One Headlight

The song was written by Jakob Dylan, and produced by T-Bone Burnett. It was released in November 1996 as the second single from the band’s 1996 album, Bringing Down the Horse. This one really got my attention when it came out. Well written and performed song. The Wallflowers song I heard first a few years before was Asleep At The Wheel. Off of their first album. This one got plenty of airplay.

The song is notable for being the first song to reach No. 1 on all three of Billboard‘s rock airplay charts – Alternative Songs, Mainstream Rock Songs, and Adult Alternative Songs. The song did not make the Billboard 100 though.

Really Good RS 2000 article about Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers…by David Fricke

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-confessions-of-jakob-dylan-a-wallflowers-coming-out-80746/

From Songfacts

Jakob Dylan: “I tend to write with a lot of metaphors and images, so people take them literally. The song’s meaning is all in the first verse. It’s about the death of ideas. The first verse says, ‘The death of the long broken arm of human law.’ At times, it seems like there should be a code among human beings that is about respect and appreciation. I wasn’t feeling like there was much support outside the group putting together the record. In the chorus, it says, ‘C’mon try a little.’ I didn’t need everything to get through, I could still get through – meaning ‘one headlight.” >>

This song wasn’t released as a single in America, so it was not eligible for the Hot 100 (Billboard changed this rule a few years later). It did, however, make #2 on the Airplay chart.

One Headlight

So long ago, I don’t remember when
That’s when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees

I seen the sun comin’ up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste, she always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

She said it’s cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can’t break away from this parade
But there’s got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead at the county line bridge
Sayin’ all there’s good and nothingness is dead
We’ll run until she’s out of breath
She ran until there’s nothin’ left
She hit the end, it’s just her window ledge

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn’t turn
Well it smells of cheap wine, cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I’d like to watch it burn
I’m so alone and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain’t changed, but I know I ain’t the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin’ dreams
I think of death, it must be killin’ me

Hey, hey hey come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There’s got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

The James Gang – Funk #49

This song has been played a bunch on the radio but Joe Walsh’s intro doesn’t get old to me. The song peaked at #59 in the Billboard 100 in 1971.

The James Gang is best known for their guitarist, Joe Walsh, whose playing on this track helped establish him as a superstar guitarist. Walsh joined the Cleveland-based group in 1969 after making a name for himself as one of the top guitarists in Ohio. He replaced Glenn Schwartz in the band, who Walsh considers a mentor. They were a 5-piece when Walsh joined but was down to three when they released their second album James Gang Rides Again.

 

From Songfacts

With just three members, it meant Walsh had to play both rhythm and lead guitar parts, and also sing (he got a lot more help when he joined the Eagles in 1975). It was quite a learning experience for Walsh, who left the James Gang in 1971 after recording three studio albums with the group.

It was the producer Bill Szymczyk who signed the James Gang to ABC Records after seeing them perform at a show in Ohio. Szymczyk produced the band and began a long association with Joe Walsh, producing his solo albums and most of the Eagles output in the ’70s.

Walsh wrote this song with his bandmates, drummer Jim Fox and bass player Dale Peters. The song is about a girlfriend whose wild ways the singer just can’t tame (the female equivalent of Joe Walsh’s character in his solo hit “Life’s Been Good”). There isn’t much in the way of lyrics, as the song is mostly a showcase for Walsh’s guitar work. He explained in the book The Guitar Greats, “I came up with the basic guitar lick, and the words never really impressed me intellectually, but they seemed to fit somehow. It was a really good example of how we put things together, bearing in mind that it was a three-piece group, and I don’t think that there was any overdubbing. The only thing we really added was the percussion middle part, which the three of us actually played, putting some parts on top of the drums, but that’s the three-piece James Gang, and that’s the energy and kind of the symmetry we were all about.”

The first James Gang album (Yer’ Album, 1969) contained the track “Funk #48,” which according to producer Bill Szymczyk, got its title “out of thin air.” When they came up with what would become “Funk #49,” they were once again faced with no logical title based on the lyrics, and followed the sequence. There was a “Funk 50,” but not until Joe Walsh released it on his 2012 album Analog Man after being asked to rework “Funk #49” for the ESPN show Sunday NFL Countdown.

“Funk #49” became a staple of Album Oriented Rock and Classic Rock radio, but it wasn’t the biggest chart hit for the James Gang – that would be “Walk Away,” which made #51 in 1971 and was later reworked for Walsh’s 1976 solo album You Can’t Argue with a Sick Mind. “Funk #49” is one of Joe Walsh’s most popular songs, and by the mid-’70s he admitted that he couldn’t stand playing it anymore, but did so because fans loved it.

Funk #49

Uh, sleep all day, out all night,
I know where you’re going.
I don’t that’s a-acting right,
You don’t think it’s showing.
A-jumpin’ up, fallin’ down,
Don’t misunderstand me.
You don’t think that I know your plan,
What you try’n to hand me?

Out all night, sleep all day,
I know what you’re doing.
If you’re gonna a-act that way,
Think there’s trouble brewing.

 

Mott The Hoople – All The Way From Memphis

This song was the first single off of the album Mott. The album peaked at #35 in Billboard album charts in 1973. The single did not chart in the US but did peak at #10 in the UK. The song was based on a real event about gear being lost during overseas tours. ‘All the Way From Memphis’ chronicles an incident in which Mick Ralphs’ guitar was shipped to a different state than the one in which the band was playing.

Martin Scorsese used this song as the opening song in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”

 

 

From Songfacts

The single “All The Way From Memphis” was released in September 1973, and like the B-side, “Ballad Of Mott,” (the extended version) appears on the Mott album. Considered one of Ian Hunter’s finest efforts, it was inspired by events leading up to the final date of their US tour, which is detailed in the band’s official biography by Campbell Devine. When they flew down to Memphis, Mick Ralphs decided to travel by road with Verden Allen. The other members of the band went by plane, but the airline lost Mick’s guitar. When they arrived, the road crew had disappeared with Ralphs and Allen, ticket sales were very grim, and Ralphs’ hotel room was robbed, but then they received a message to say that ticket sales were rising rapidly.

The concert, three days before Christmas at Ellis Auditorium, was “an incredible triumph wrenched from the jaws of disaster.” They were supported by Joe Walsh, who returned to jam with them. Hunter wrote the song on the day of the concert and dedicated it to two of their crew, Lee Childers and Tony Zanetta. And Memphis, Tennessee.

All The Way From Memphis

Forgot my six-string razor hit the sky
Half way to Memphis ‘fore I realized
Well I rang the information my axe was cold
They said she rides the train to oreoles

Now it’s a mighty long way down the dusty trail
And the sun burns hot on the cold steel rails
‘n I look like a bum ‘n I crawl like a snail
All the way from Memphis

Well I got to oreoles y’know it took a month
And there was my guitar, electric junk.
Some spade said rock ‘n’ rollers, you’re all the same.
Man that’s your instrument. I felt so ashamed.

Now it’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll
Through the Bradford cities and the oreoles
‘n you look like a star but you’re still on the dole
All the way from Memphis

Yeah it’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll
From the Liverpool docks to the Hollywood bowl
‘n you climb up the mountains ‘n you fall down the holes
All the way from Memphis

Yeah it’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll
As your name gets hot so your heart grows cold
‘n you gotta stay young man, you can never be old
All the way from Memphis

Yeah it’s a mighty long way down rock ‘n’ roll
Through the Bradford cities and the oreoles
‘n you look like a star but you’re really out on parole!
All the way from Memphis